Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children & Hollow Ciity by Ransom Riggs

I did not expect to like this book (and its sequel) as much as I did. Somehow I had it in my head that it was all about the photographs and that it was a story about freaks, and I'm not into freak shows and all that, they give me the heebeegeebees. But I figure it would have been a perfect read for R.I.P. so there we are. As it turns out, it wasn't just about the photographs and the "freaks" were adorable and I loved them all, individually and as a group.

The first book is, I dare say, perfect. It builts up nicely at the start, then it throws you into another world and you get to know the characters and why they are there, and there's even a sprinkle of romance, which is always good, and then there's Miss Peregrine and she's so much like McGonagall I wanted to squee. My favourite of the children had to be Bronwyn. She is lovely and motherly and cool. But it's true that I loved all of them and I was so afraid some of them were going to die.

I need to express my excitement now so if you don't want any spoilers skip the next paragraph:

There was time travel (!) and time loops (!) and that's already two of my favourite tropes in the history of tropes.

There were some things I wasn't too clear about, like for example, how come the children kept feeling like children after all those years. But I just went with it.

End of spoiler

 And when it was over I was like hell no, I'm not going to start another book, Imma download the sequel right now. And I did. I'm starting to love this ebook business.

And the sequel was also great fun, because it had all the characters I loved and there was adventure

and ass-kicking and new photographs (although these were less believable, especially as they were meant to be taken when it would have been impossible for them to take photos, or at least very unlikely), some more romance and I love how Emma kept being the leader of the group, because I love Emma. And the animals were cool and the enemies were scary and I really just wanted them to have Miss Peregrine back, but I had a nudging feeling that it could all go so very wrong. And then it does and I was like shiiiiiiit but also damn they should have thought of that possibility at least and now they're kinda screwed, except that the ending gave some sort of hope, even though they're still pretty screwed.

Now I need the third. Now, like.